


Temptation

by marmolita



Series: Trek prompt fills [5]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Obsidian Order, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:17:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/pseuds/marmolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Garak thinks about every person he meets is how long they would stand up to his interrogation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temptation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imadra_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadra_blue/gifts).



> Warnings for torture, somewhat graphic violence, sadism.

The first thing Garak thinks about every person he meets is how long they would stand up to his interrogation. It used to be part of his job, this constant evaluating, but now it's just a game. He will likely never again have the chance to exercise his skills, but it amuses him to think about. Quark wouldn't last five minutes. O'Brien, Dax, hours, perhaps a day or two. Sisko would probably make it four or five days under torture, but Garak knows he could apply the right kind of pressure. Anyone with family is vulnerable. To be honest, Major Kira would probably last longer than anyone. Pure stubbornness would get her most of the way, but the fact is that Kira no longer has any family left to lose.

When he first met Julian Bashir, he figured his type immediately. Seduce him, get the information you need in pillow talk, kill him if necessary. He'd started the seduction out of idle amusement, in fact, but discovered that there was more to Julian than met the eye. He's had to reconsider his judgement since then -- the good doctor has proven himself capable of keeping important secrets, and Garak has decided he would likely survive at least three days.

***

He dreams about it sometimes. He dreams about interrogation chambers, about injecting his subjects with paralytics and algesics, with truth serums and hallucinogens. He dreams about knives and scalpels and pliers and clamps, about blood and screams.

They're good dreams, for the most part.

Occasionally, he dreams about torturing people he cares about. Not often, as there aren't many people left who fit that description, but sometimes it's Mila under his knife, sometimes it's Julian.

His dreams about Julian are fascinating from an objective point of view. In the moment, in his dreams, he enjoys himself. He enjoys wringing information out of Julian -- it takes a lot of thought, because it's all about mind games with him. Psychological torture with him is fun, just like debating philosophy over lunch is fun, and it's almost a disappointment to have to move on to the physical part. Still, Julian trembles wonderfully as the knife drags across his skin, a thin line of blood springing up in its wake. His sweat is rich with the pungent aroma of fear, and the fine hairs on his arms and legs stand up in the cold of the interrogation chamber.

It's beautiful.

He's beautiful.

These are the dreams Garak wakes up from, feeling sick to his stomach. They are the ones that haunt him and keep him off balance for days at a time, when he goes to lunch with Julian and hears the echoes of hoarse screams in every word and sees the flutter of fear in the pulse jumping in Julian's neck.

They haunt him not because the idea of torturing his best friend disgusts him, but because it tempts him.

***

Julian asks, once, how many people Garak killed during his time in the Obsidian Order. It's a moment of anger, Garak no longer recalls the cause, a case of Julian trying to prove a point about human morality. He doesn't remember how he replied either -- he's told so many lies about his past they all blend together. The fact remains that Garak has no idea how many people he's killed. He lost track after the first handful, but he expects the number is somewhere in the hundreds, excluding the time he planted the bombs that destroyed an entire mining outpost. Many of them he killed with his bare hands.

Sometimes, he looks at Julian, and thinks he'd like to add one more to the list. To have Julian's thin human skin under his hands, to feel his windpipe collapse or maybe even the crunch of vertebrae cracking out of alignment in his neck.

It occurs to him one night, in the wee hours of the morning, after another one of those dreams, that he is in love.

The fact is, Garak doesn't want Julian to die unless he kills him himself. For a man like Garak, that's about the most powerful declaration of love there is.


End file.
